Art & Political Action: Black Migrant Justice
Comments Off on Art & Political Action: Black Migrant JusticeLet’s be real. The last four years have been cemented in our collective memory as a series of hard political truths, catastrophic threats to public health, and the call for freedom fueled by the People. Despite the disparaging social rhetoric, discriminatory legislation, and disruptive group-think that has clouded our digital spaces in recent years, The LP remains a hub for artists and cultural producers to shift the paradigm within Black, Indigenous, and POC neighborhoods. To understand how art informs justice movements within POC neighborhoods, we’re investigating how freedom–and its absence–takes shape for Black people in the United States.
THEN
Throughout its 248-year history as a nation, the U.S. federal government has granted access to state and federal civic engagement based on legal citizenship. One core civic duty of any legal citizen in the U.S. is voting. However, the road to realizing all aspects of equal citizenship in this country is as tumultuous as it is incomplete. Take the Voting Act of 1965, for example. Enshrined in this act are the stories of Civil Rights activists who trudged through the relentless whips and tear gas of Alabama state troopers to exercise their right to bring voting access to Black Americans. Their legacies and legal victories are engraved in our textbooks, on our streets, and in documentaries, murals, and museums around the world. Despite its unfinished history, national advocacy led by Black communities has outlasted racist legislation for generations.
NOW
The struggle for the inalienable right to a dignified life on U.S. soil amongst Black people has only deepened. Today, the weaponization of U.S. citizenship and one’s civic duties–or lack thereof–befalls a particular group that often falls under the public radar: Black immigrant communities from across the African Diaspora.
The threat of erasure, criminalization, and systemic disenfranchisement are ever present for Black immigrant communities due to increasingly xenophobic state and federal legislation ³ throughout the last decade. Since 2022, over 189,000 immigrants have arrived in New York City from around the world, including immigrants from Guinea, Senegal, Mauritania, and Venezuela. Yet, Black immigrants in New York City face a sharp disparity in access to essential resources, including a lack of access to food and clothing ¹, employment barriers ¹, language barriers ², and stable housing ².
In other words, from the Selma to Mongomery marches of 1965 to today’s mutual aid movements for Black asylum seekers in NYC, Black people across the diaspora are still fighting for their rights in this country. The LP recognizes the need for solidarity with Black diasporic communities on local, national, and global levels, and we believe in the power of art, storytelling, and advocacy to do it.
So, what happens when we add art into the mix? How can art and advocacy disrupt systems of power, encourage grassroots civic engagement, and restore resources for Black migrant communities across New York City? To answer these questions, we sat down with two community members working to achieve just that.
Meet Liziana Cruz (she/her), a New York-based Dominican immigrant, participatory artist, and designer interested in how migration affects ways of being & belonging. During her 2017 Create Change Residency at The LP, Lizania spearheaded “We the News,” a traveling newsstand that engaged Bed-Stuy’s streets to publicize narratives of Black immigrant community members.
Meet Melissa Johnson, a political organizer of Jamaican and Afro-Cuban descent whose work merges organizing, advocacy, and education to support Black migrant justice. As a New York Organizer for the Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI), Melissa’s work combats discrimination at the city and state level to improve access to affordable housing, healthcare, education, jobs, and more for Black immigrants across the African Diaspora.
Let’s dive into our conversation about how artists and organizers work together to build sustainable, autonomous futures for diasporic African communities in Brooklyn and beyond.
THE INTERVIEW
Q1: Think back to where your journeys with creative engagement and political advocacy journeys began. What sparked your interest? How did those experiences impact where you are now?
LIZANIA: I’ll start by saying that I have been in this country for–well, this year would be my twentieth year. To this day, I’ve jumped from one visa to the other. I’m in the process of applying for permanent residency. But I recognize that I come from a place of privilege because I came to this country as a student and was able to follow what you would call a legal path to citizenship. I think that those are my personal stepping stones of trying to question our current immigration system outside of the racial construct itself. I’m from the Dominican Republic, a place that is also going through a very contentious time with the narrative and the xenophobia around Haitian immigrants.
Because of my personal implications, I started to question:
“Where is my solidarity?”
I became interested in thinking about the power of design, art, and storytelling through the lens of making policy public.
One of the first projects I did around that was probably in 2013 or 2014. I was a fellow with the Center for Urban Pedagogy, and I was designing a poster that explained “ban the box,” a law passed in New York City that gave rights to people who have been or are re-entering society from the criminal justice system. When they are in the interview process, they have the right to not say that they have a criminal record. [I was] working with VOCAL-NYC very closely to distill what that policy was and how to best communicate it through the community that was being affected.
Cover and poster of “A Fair Chance” publication, Center for Urban Pedagogy, 2015.
Design by Lizania Cruz in partnership with VOCAL-NYC.
In 2016 or ‘17, as an LP artist, I had this idea to make a newsstand because, at that moment, what was being portrayed in the news…It was the first time Trump was running for president, and he obviously was using the same rhetoric as the current rhetoric that he’s using [to] specifically target immigrants. I also realized that the news wasn’t helping. I was interested in what would happen if we shared our own stories from, the “I” perspective and realized not only the common threads around the different stories but also the differences.
“When you say an immigrant or a Black immigrant, it’s really not monolithic. We are pluralistic people, I believe, and come from different backgrounds, and each case is unique.”
I partnered with BAJI, which I think really transformed the project of both myself and the folks who participated. Through that collaboration, it really became a space to speak about the intersection of race and migration.
We The News Public Activation at Word Up Bookstore, 2019.
After working on that project for six years, I started to think of [why] I was doing this work, particularly in the United States, and not looking at what was happening in my home country. I started a new body of work that was really looking at La Sentencia, which is a law that passed in the Dominican Republic in 2013 that basically retroactively revoked citizenship from Dominicans of Haitian descent. [I am] always thinking about this through the lens of art and design and partnering with organizers to bring that side of strategy to the project.
MELISSA: I was born in London, England, to Jamaican and Afro-Cuban parents. After migrating here in the mid-90s, my family entered–like many asylum seekers are arriving now–by bus. We came across the U.S. northern border from Toronto, Canada, into New York in the mid-90s and lived as undocumented folks for many years until we were able to get work visas, permanent residence, and eventually become naturalized as U.S. citizens.
During my entire time living in the United States, my first awakening of political consciousness [was] in the journey or the act of transit. We say that to recognize the journey, the experience, and the processes of alienation that distinctly impact migrant folks as they travel to destinations to find safety, access, and livelihoods and to be fully realized as citizens, both in status and in terms of access and opportunity.
“Throughout my entire life, I have experienced this triple consciousness of being Black, of being migrant, and being a Black migrant woman.”
That kind of intersection of experience and identity has really undergirded the foundation of not only my political consciousness and my work in terms of advocacy and policy work but [also] my desire to work in and on behalf of specifically Black migrant communities.
I started in college access, working in nonprofits specifically designed to support migrant students here in New York City. I recognize other young people being left out, who were immigrants, undocumented, or formerly undocumented. My frustrations with the lack of access and support for Black undocumented youth pushed me to want to work for local electoral campaigns for mayor.
That pushed me to work for the Jamaican Consulate for almost three years during the Trump years. We were seeing the violent and disproportional migrant detention and deportation of Black migrant folks, particularly from Jamaica, [which is] associated with a history of a racist, xenophobic myth around drug smuggling and drug trafficking. I wanted to be on the front lines supporting Black migrant folks, specifically Jamaican migrants, to protect them with documentation support while they are here in the U.S.
The policies and practices that were centering the marginalization and alienation of Black migrant folks…that was an entryway for me, being reconnected back to BAJI.
From 2015 to 2021, BAJI has been a part of my life in helping to humanize my experience, combat erasure, and help provide storytelling that tells the different kinds of identities and experiences Black migrants have, whether here in the U.S., at the U.S.–Southern border, or around the world.
Protest led by BAJI’s Black Immigration Network (BIN).
I’m grateful for the opportunity to be on the Power Building and Organizing team [at BAJI] now to do that work in community. We are pushing city elected officials and state officials to invest in the resources and the practices that enable our communities, all Black folks to thrive, which is access to housing, education, jobs, health, and mental health care.
“My life has been one of political engagement, political advocacy, and political resistance. My entire identity is one of resistance.”
[My life] resists the anti-Black racism and xenophobia that continues to directly harm and violently oppress Black folks, and one that recognizes the humanity, the beauty, and the love and who we are as human beings, as gifts to the world.
Q2: What is your opinion on the political landscape we are facing right now?
MELISSA: What I think has been a missing part of a national conversation that is centering around immigration, is that this is not about a particular people. This right-wing, Republican-backed agenda [centers] dehumanizing a particular group of people who are migrants, or, more specifically, Haitian migrants, is to alienate one group to lessen our power.
This particular dehumanization is an embedded and learned practice of alienation of folks of the African diaspora.
“When we dehumanize our siblings or our cousins, we are really harming ourselves.”
Our work over the years, and particularly this year for BAJI-NY, [shows that] we are better together and stronger forever if we recognize the things that unite us: this journey for safety, for livelihood, for thriving livelihoods, connects us. We all want to have access to opportunity. We all want to be fully recognized as full citizens, not just in status but in the treatment of us as human beings.
This is not a “them” versus “us” like the Adams administration or Republican, anti-immigrant xenophobic rhetoric is trying to make us believe. This is about: Are we invested? Are we committed to protecting the rights of all folks? The Project 2025 playbook lays out the ways that first, they come for the migrants, then they go for LGBTQ+ folks, then they go for disabled folks, then they go for poor folks.
BAJI, with all of our civic engagement team across the country, and BAJI ACTION, which is our newly formed 501(c)4, has been trying to engage Black migrant communities in this election cycle around not just voting as a tool of resistance, but also engage folks around in conversation about what is happening locally in New York, in the state and the city level, and what is happening around the country, what the power of your vote means.
“This is a fight to protect all of us. This is a fight to expand opportunity, access, and rights for all of us. This is truly a fight for our collective humanity and for all of us to be able to thrive.”
LIZANIA: I agree completely with Melissa. If one person is left behind, or one group is left behind, that means that none of us will get the freedom and sovereignty that we deserve. I’m also thinking about transnational solidarity. Because it’s not only my block, my neighborhood, my city, [or] the country I live in. It’s also how this is affecting all Black people, people of color, and brown folks around the world. We see the same tactics all throughout. How can we create a bigger understanding that this is a global phenomenon that we should be really thinking about across nations?
I’ve been personally thinking about citizenship. The legitimacy or the legality of citizenship. For me, that’s a structure that is also creating the systems of, “Oh, I’m African American, I shouldn’t be building community with an African diasporic person,” or what have you. I’ve been thinking of how we could shift that narrative. We’re fighting for our freedom here but also elsewhere.
MELISSA: I want to respond to Lizania’s point about transnational solidarity. We’re not getting enough conversation and mainstream spaces around the need for continued critical resistance against international military policing and the caging system of dehumanization. Black and Indigenous folks and Palestinian folks are having this conversation. [They] are reminding us that the suppression and the violent dehumanization of one group impacts all of us. It is not just a singular community or issue. It is all of our issues.
Our collective humanity is dependent on being bound up in the appreciation, support, recognition, and the fight to protect livelihood in places where these systems of oppression– of marginalization, of alienation–continue. Border suppression, migrant detention, state incarceration from New York State to Alabama, deportation, the National Guard on subway platforms, and robocops in the Bronx are all intensely connected to each other.
Our gifts of love to community––whether it is art, whether it is education, whether it is community dialogue––participates in ensuring that we are actively resisting those systems.
Q3: In your opinion, how is this struggle for liberation for Black migrant communities reflected in the local arts and culture spaces in New York?
LIZANIA: It’s a hard question to untangle because oftentimes, I think, the powers that fund these spaces are also the places that are creating the states of oppression. These things are really intertwined, unfortunately.
I don’t think we’re doing as much as we could be doing. Even the way resources are distributed is uniquely attached to a specific type of work or box that doesn’t allow for other things to happen. I do think that there are spaces where grassroots work is happening in arts and culture.
I’m working on the investigation of the Dominican racial imaginary. It links the diasporic community in New York and in the U.S. and elsewhere to what is currently happening in the Dominican Republic. It also debunks myths about how our history is told; the way the Haitian Revolution is consolidated in how Dominican folks learn about our own identity. There are groups like We Are All Dominican, for instance, here in New York, that are actively doing that work. There was a festival around Haitian and Dominican filmmaking that was organized by an artist, Clarivel Ruiz. These spaces are really necessary. And those two groups are very grassroots.
Flyer for Nou Akoma Nou Sinérji Hatian Dominical Transnational Film Festival, 2024.
I do think finding cultural ways to uplift the pluralistic humanity of people and debunking the myths that we’ve been told over and over again is the space that I’m hopeful will grow in the cultural landscape.
MELISSA: I think there’s a lot of work to do. I know that artists are sitting in a canon of work that is responding to institutions who are unwilling to go further than 2020’s DEI statements and 2020’s very limited attempt to redistribute resources to Black folks.
“I’m grateful for art and artists and their artistry to continue to sit in that tradition of work of critical resistance and political engagement.”
I’m grateful for the role of art in our community and the artists themselves because they play an important role as narrative shift architects. They help us as movement-building organizations better tell our stories [and] bear witness to our experiences. I think that’s incredibly important right now for Black migrant communities across the country and in New York to help us combat the anti-Black racist hate that continues to be pervasive across the country and show up in these policies and practices. Art helps us further see and fully realize ourselves, grapple with these realities, and expands not only the depictions of us but [also] illuminate the fullness of our humanity in the past, the present, and our future.
Q4: What do you hope to see in building solidarity between grassroots movements for Black migrant communities and arts & culture spaces?
MELISSA: I hope that [with] what we’re doing at BAJI-NY and BAJI National, we can sit as collaborators and co-conspirators with artists to challenge these systems, speak to the repressive practices that harm and violate our communities and then reimagine with artists–in innovative and creative, tangible, and accessible ways–how to further illuminate our humanity, from the past to present.
Lizania’s past work with the zine is a powerful and beautiful offering to and for community. It shows us how collaboration and co-conspiring with artists and artistry do work hand-in-hand with this work of critical resistance, political engagement, and community power-building.
We The News, Miami, Florida, 2018.
As Black migrants, we know we are politically engaged, particularly in our home countries and here. We know that what is on the ballot, who is on the ballot, and the implications of voting “yes” to a particular proposal or “no” have drastic and disproportional impacts on Black migrant folks. [For instance], language inclusion of Afro-diasporic languages or Afro-Indigenous languages like Pular, Wolof, and Afro-Brazilian Portuguese is not considered necessary or valuable by these systems. But we know that they are because we speak these languages. These are languages that are unique and Indigenous to our communities.
We need to ensure that [our communities understand] these proposals that enshrine expanded rights for all folks in New York, regardless of immigration status. We need more reflection and artistic expression so that we can spread this information to as many folks as possible. That’s what I want to see increased.
Q5: What words of encouragement can you offer to artists and neighbors who are amplifying Black migrant justice movements in their neighborhoods?
LIZANIA: I think [we need to] fully assert our humanity and think about ourselves in a pluralistic way, I’m always trying to bring consciousness-raising ideas, how to ask questions, how to speak from the “I” and allow the “we” to show up. And how to really practice deep listening. It is also super important to reiterate how building space is an art form in itself. The ability to facilitate a space, to invite people to a space, and create a space where we could all be our full selves…For me, that’s the most powerful art tool we could have.
MELISSA: If your desire is to be invested in creating space for the fullness of yourself and all Black migrant folks to be treated as full members of our community, there is space in artistic mediums and the artistic landscape, as well as in organizing for all of us in pursuit of the liberation of all Black folks. There is space! Join us!
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At The LP, we are deeply inspired by the artists and neighbors using creative civic engagement to shape communities, dismantle systemic barriers to civic participation for Black migrant communities, and create spaces where all people are free to thrive. We encourage The LP community to think about the intersections of art, creative engagement, and social justice and how you can create change that honors your roots and illuminates the path to freedom for future generations.
INFORMATION AND RESOURCES
- Make the Road New York. Black Migrants in New York Experiencing Scarcity and Inequity, New Study Says. May 2, 2024. https://maketheroadny.org/black-migrants-in-new-york-experiencing-scarcity-and-inequity-new-study-
- Make the Road New York. Leaving Behind the Newest New Yorkers. May 2, 2024. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQNpexByt3pmjxwxbpyKFf67-UpG4Fq1/view
- Make the Road New York. Leaving Behind the Newest New Yorkers. May 2, 2024. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vQNpexByt3pmjxwxbpyKFf67-UpG4Fq1/view
- Belonging Project at UC Berkeley. Legalizing Xenophobia and Islamophobia in the United States. Last modified. January 15, 2019. https://belonging.berkeley.edu/islamophobia/legalizing-xenophobia-and-islamophobia-united-states.
- Center for Migration Studies of New York. Black Undocumented Immigrants in NYC. February 16, 2022. https://cmsny.org/black-undocumented-immigrants-nyc/.
- Krales, Alex. “Migrants’ Experience in Senegal Shelters Discussed at Council Hearing.” The City, April 16, 2024. https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/04/16/migrants-experience-senegal-shelters-council-hearing/#:
- Adams, Eric. “Transcript: Mayor Adams Holds In-Person Media Availability.” The City of New York, April 16, 2024. https://www.nyc.gov/office-of-the-mayor/news/265-24/transcript-mayor-adams-holds-in-person-media-availability.
- Wright, Elizabeth. “‘We Need to Do Better’: Language Barriers Create Steeper Hurdles for African Migrants in Shelter.” City Limits, April 17, 2024. https://citylimits.org/2024/04/17/we-need-to-do-better-language-barriers-create-steeper-hurdles-for-african-migrants-in-shelter/.
- Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI). End of Year Report 2023. 2023. https://baji-eoy23.my.canva.site/bajieoy2023.
CONTRIBUTORS
Lizania Cruz (she/her) is a Dominican participatory artist and designer interested in how migration affects ways of being & belonging. Through research, oral history, and audience engagement, she creates projects that expand and share pluralistic narratives on migration. Cruz received the 2023 New York City Artadia Award, and her newest project was commissioned by The Shed for Open Call 2023. In 2021, Cruz was part of ESTAMOS BIEN: LA TRIENAL 20/21 at el Museo del Barrio, the first national survey of Latinx artists by the institution. Most recently, she was part of 52 Artists: A Feminist Milestone at the Aldrich Museum. She has presented solo shows at A.I.R. Gallery, CUE Art Foundation, International Studio & Curatorial Program, ISCP, Alma Lewis, and Proxyco Gallery. Her work has been exhibited at Sharjah’s First Design Biennale, Untitled, Art Miami Beach, The Highline, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, and more.
Kas Merriwether (they/them) is a musician, digital storyteller, and curator of community arts experiences. They are committed to weaving visual languages of media to challenge existing systems of oppression impacting Black, Indigenous, and POC communities in New York and beyond. As an artist, Kas looks to the arts as a space for healing and empowering communities to shape their political realities. Prior to working with The LP, Kas served as a Grant Writer at the Brooklyn Arts Council, a Community Relations Manager at Lang Civic Engagement and Social Justice at The New School, a Co-Producer for various independent projects, including an international dialogue series, short films & podcasts, and a Transcription Intern at BRIC Arts Media. Additionally, Kas holds a B.A. in Culture & Media Studies with a concentration in filmmaking.
Melissa Johnson (she/her) is a British-born Jamaican migrant and a proud Brooklyn resident. For the past 10 years, Melissa has served in leadership roles from NYC Mayoral Campaigns to College Access Programs to Consular Officer for the Jamaican Consulate-NY. As BAJI’s NY Organizer, she continues to focus on policies/practices, resources, and community organizing that advance justice and expand opportunities for Black migrant and African American communities. Melissa holds an M.A. in International Affairs from The New School and a B.A. in Women’s Studies and Sociology from Wheaton College, MA.
